A big fan of the game of baseball itself, who just happens to have no favorite team.

Results tagged ‘ Questions ’

It may be a brand new year, but it’s proving to be the same old Athletics.

A team known in recent history for their offseason trades and signings that leave them with a completely different looking ball club from one year to the next, the A’s have once again used the offseason to this point to make a lot of moves (some good, some bad) to change up the overall structure of their team.

The most recent case coming on Saturday with the trading away of John Jaso and a couple of top prospects, in Daniel Robertson and Boog Powell, to the Rays in exchange for Ben Zobrist and Yunel Escobar, who will both help what has the potential to be a good A’s team in 2015.

Despite losing John Jaso, who was a solid player for the Athletics in 2014, as well as Robertson and Powell, the A’s got back a fairly good package in return.

After an extended period of trade rumors surrounding Ben Zobrist, a transaction for him finally occurred, sending Zobrist off to the A’s. Two years removed from back-to-back 20 homer seasons, Zobrist hit a mere 10 bombs in 2014, but is still more than capable of impacting any team he’s on, as he has over the course of his All-Star career with the Rays.

Other moves the A’s have made so far to go along with the Zobrist and Escobar trade that could turn out to have major impacts began with the pickup of Billy Butler on a three-year, thirty million dollar contract. The Athletics then proceeded to swap their All-Star third baseman, Josh Donaldson, for fellow hot corner defender, Brett Lawrie, from the Blue Jays.

While the Butler deal was applauded by many, the Donaldson move was one that left many people scratching their heads. However, they weren’t done there.

Following the initial offseason additions of Butler and Lawrie, the Athletics kicked off the 2014 Winter Meetings, trading slugger Brandon Moss to the Indians, and almost immediately after departed ways with Jeff Samardzija for a few potential valuable but unproven players from the White Sox.

Even though there are some things the Athletics have done that I don’t agree with, for the most part I like where the A’s are headed.

Losing Yoenis Cespedes to the Red Sox via a trade for Jon Lester, and knowing they wouldn’t likely retain Lester upon the end of the season, the moves the A’s are making should help them in their attempt to make up for those losses.

Even after losing Lester, the Athletics’ rotation will still be decent, with Sonny Gray leading the way, along with Jarrod Parker who is set to return to health, and their lineup always seems to find a way to produce runs. Having finished with a win-loss record above .500 for each of the past three seasons, things are seemingly lining up to make it four.

Sometime this week I’m going to be emailing Heath Bell (technically his assistant) a few questions that I have for him. I already sent an email once, asking if it was okay to send some questions for Heath to answer. The response was from Heath’s assistant, Mike, who assured me that if I sent along some questions, Heath Bell would answer them when he could.

I already have my set of questions ready to go. But before I send them along, I was wondering if anyone reading this had any questions for the Padre’s closer. Just leave a comment with your question(s) in the next couple of days, and I might send it along with mine for Heath to answer.

Check back next week for the answers. (I’m hoping next week, but it may take longer or shorter, depending on Heath’s schedule.)

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Does the name Jerry Dior ring a bell? For most of you; probablly not. I had never heard of him until I read a blog entry by Zack Hample. As I found out in Zack’s entry, Jerry Dior was the creator of the well known MLB logo of today. After reading the entry, I couldn’t stop the flood of questions that entered my mind. How was he chosen to design the logo? How long did it take to design it? Was there a logo before his? The questions went on and on. So I decided to email him, to find out the answers first hand, from the man who created it.
I recieved a reply the next day.(This all occured in December.) All of my questions were finally answered:

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO DESIGN THE LOGO?

“I did the sketch in one afternoon.”

DID YOU DESIGN THE LOGO WITH THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE COLOR SCHEME?

“I did 2 color concepts. One in blue and green for the sky and ground and one in red, white and blue to represent the national game of baseball.”

HOW WERE YOU CHOSEN TO DESIGN THE LOGO?

“I worked for a design company as one of their graphic designers. As the projects came in they assigned an available designer. It just happened that I was available to work on that MLB project.”

WAS THERE AN MLB LOGO BEFORE YOURS?

“There was an MLB logo used from 1960 to 1968.”(CLICK HERE….If you want to see the logo used from 1960 to 1968.)

WHY DID MLB WANT A NEW LOGO?

“MLB wanted the design to celebrate the 100th anniversary of baseball in 1969.”

I was VERY happy that I finally had the answers to my questions. But wait! There’s more. As I finished reading the email, a certain sentence caught my eye. The sentence read as follows… “I would like your address so that I can send you something.” What? I hadn’t asked for anything and yet he was offering me something? But what? I came home one afternoon, to find a large yellow, bubble lined envelope; lying on the porch. I opened it up, and to my surprise, found three items signed by Jerry Dior. There was an index card with the words, “Matt-Best wishes for a Happy Holiday-Jerry Dior.”
I then found a business card sized logo signed by Jerry.
(I saved the best for last.) Also inside was an 11X14 inch cardboard logo signed, “To Matt-Jerry Dior.”
I was extremely excited to recieve the items. (I still am.) Not only did Jerry Dior take the time to answer my questions, but he also sent me a package of goodies. WHAT A NICE GUY!!!!

(And for those of you who are wondering, Jerry told me that the Logo is NOT, I repeat, NOT, Harmon Killebrew.)

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